Sunday, 25 November 2012

New Videos Show Even More Heavy Weapons Captured From The 46th Regiment

As I've been posting for the last few days a recent major victory at the 46th Regiment base near Aleppo has resulted in large numbers of heavy weapons being captured by the Syrian opposition, including surface to air missiles, tanks, and artillery. Now more photographs and videos have been posted online showing a large collection of heavy weapons that are claimed to have been captured from the 46th Regiment base.

In this first video we at first see, from right to left, a T-55 tank, a BMP-1, what I believe is a BMP variant, and three more tank, possibly T-55s. We then see 6 truck mounted guns, including ZPU-2s, DShKs, and KPVs, likely used in the attack rather than captured from the base.

We then have this video from the same gathering showing off some of the artillery captured

HamaEcho posted a number of photographs showing even more equipment, apparently taken at the same gathering.

In this first picture we get another look at the 130mm M-46 field artillery gun, along with four Type-63 multiple rocket launcher, a weapon that until now was the longest ranged artillery weapon widely available to the Syrian opposition (see here for more details of their past use).

This photo provides us with another angle on the various collected artillery pieces.

Again, another angle on the artillery, and what I believe is a 120mm M1938M mortar. Finally we have one last video from Al Jazeera Arabic filmed at this gathering

It's difficult to get a sense of whether or not they filmed additional vehicles and weapons, but at one point a BTR-60 or BTR-70 is visible in the background.

6 comments:

Hello,The first tank isn't a T-55, but a T-62, previously captured and used during the fighting for the base :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5mmoBWjHlE&feature=plcp(the 17.11.2012).The BMP variant is a Czech made AMB-S armored ambulance/command post. Right, the three more tank are T-55. But at least, we can see four of them during this parade on the videos.

About the M-46 130 mm field gun : it was used since several weeks by the FSA. In the northern Syria, the first was captured by an FSA unit (the Mountain Brigade Wastani), the 06.10.2012 :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLM6l0jhsts&feature=plcpand used for the firt time the 31.10.2012 (Operation Storm), against a Syrian Army checkpoint / barrier :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8w6U5vZHf4The Farouk battalion north also seized some of them, probably from the same Syrian Army checkpoint / barrier than the copies captured by the the Mountain Brigade Wastani.

About the D-30 122 mm howitzer, in northern Syria, the first was captured at Al-Bab, near Aleppo, the 29.07.2012, and perhaps used by the FSA, at least against the Air Force Intelligence building in the neighborhood of al-Zahra, Aleppo :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maKm-fEYSHs

About additional vehicles and weapons captured from the 46th base, the wheeled armored is a BTR-60. Sadly, for the moment, I don't find any photography, only some videos, but it look like a BTR-60PU-12 (Command post variant of the BTR-60).

Specifically, one recognition feature, that I just noticed, is the rounded bulge on the bottom of the right side of the back of the T-62 hull. Note that the tank in the video has it, while T-54s do not. For comparison: